The field of the invention is sound monitoring and alerting system, and more specifically a sound detection and alerting system for use in a designated area such as a workspace, an office, a conference room, or the like, for indicating when at least one characteristic of sounds exceeds a threshold level.
The office furniture industry is always evolving to meet the needs of customers. Communication is an important vehicle for human interaction in personal and business settings to convey information. In a time when electronic communication bombards individuals, people are increasingly returning to interpersonal communication with colleagues, customers and friends through face-to-face meetings, telephone calls, video chats, and other forms of direct verbal communication.
In many office settings, however, direct communication through one of the aforementioned methods is challenging for many reasons. In particular, offices, cubicles, conference rooms, and workspaces pose particular challenges with respect to the transmission of sound. In many work environments furniture artifacts are designed to stress, there is an open space work place, wherein the physical boundaries between offices are non-existent, minimal, temporary, or only provide a partial boundary that delineates individual workspace. In other instances, even where boundaries such as walls are provided to separate workspaces, boundaries often do not provide sufficient sound-proofing if the volume of a person's voice within a space exceeds a threshold level.
Further, in many instances, individuals are unaware of the volume of their voices and the sound that is being transmitted to adjacent spaces. This lack of awareness causes many issues in the workplace. For example, high volume speech often disturbs or disrupts individuals in adjacent or nearby workspaces. As another example, information disclosed in private or confidential conversations is not protected and may be inadvertently disclosed when people speak at high volume. As one other instance, conversations and/or work may be interrupted due to sound or noise from conversations that may be taking place in adjacent workspaces.
Existing work places are often designed to attempt to overcome the aforementioned problems through the use of various tools. In particular, some workplaces construct walls or barriers to define enclosed private spaces for workers. Such barriers typically extend from floor to ceiling and separate a workspace from adjacent workspaces. Workplaces may further include soundproofing material in the barriers and/or ceiling to further buffer sound that is emitted from workspaces.
In other instances, workplaces use other methods to try to control sounds transmitted between adjacent spaces. For example, many workspaces utilize noise generating systems to cover up or distort sound waves and noises. Such systems frequently emit sounds designed to cover up or mask sound generated by speech.
In still other workspaces, noise-cancelling systems are used to filter or cancel sound waves as they travel out of the vicinity of the workspace. The sound canceling systems are typically designed to emit white noise at frequencies that should cancel out sound waves before the sound waves reach adjacent workspaces. The sound canceling systems typically utilize a plurality of strategically located speakers (e.g., above a doorway) and a controller that is designed to control the white noise in ways calculated to cancel sound.
While existing systems and techniques for reducing noise travel among adjacent spaces work well in some applications, unfortunately known systems have several shortcomings. First, the option to place barriers between adjacent workspaces is not available in some cases where an open seating or workspace design is desired. Further, even where walls or other physical barriers can be used, such barriers often times do not block all sound. In these cases, where a space user perceives that walls are sound proof, the problems associated with high volume sound carrying from one space to another can be exacerbated as a space user may be encouraged to increase her volume in the “sound proof” space.
Second, where noise cancelling and generating systems are used, they are typically utilized throughout an entire workspace in a blanket manner and do not target noise levels near specific individuals or in specific workspaces. As a result, the noise cancelling systems are ineffective for use with various levels of sound that travels between one space and adjacent spaces.
Third, persons within a space have no way of knowing if the volume of their voices or other sound generating devices within their spaces is at a level that can be heard from outside their spaces. In this case, where a person believes a first space they occupy is sound proof, the person will do nothing to temper the volume of her voice in the first space potentially resulting in disclosure of private information to other spaces or a condition in which persons in adjacent spaces are at least bothered by sounds emanating from the first space. In other cases, where the person in the first space believes that the first space is not sound proof, the person in the first space will likely over-react and keep her voice and sounds in the space at an extremely low volume to avoid inadvertent disclosure or a bothersome condition for adjacent space users. Unnecessary low volume can adversely affect intended communication.